The Rising Threat
by Hayabusa1138
Summary: While training on Ziost, the Sith lady in training Lumiya finds that she's now far more alone than she thought.


The lone figure walked through the frozen waste, red hair flowing in the hyperborean breeze. Dark plasteel boots crunched through the accumulated snow and ice, leaving small footprints in their owner's wake. The path stretched for kilometers in the tundra, leading past cryogenically preserved trees that had died millennia previously and lakes that had not been liquid for even longer.

A small cave was ahead the tracks of its occupant's departure this morning partially obscured by the drifting snow. Next to a dying glowlamp was a raging fire that turned the area around the makeshift into a slushy mess. Near the fire was a small table containing a dark triangle trimmed with red and a scroll.

The young apprentice stepped into her home for the past month and removed the thickest layer of her protective clothing. Underneath the large parka, she wore a heavy padded jumpsuit designed to keep the body's heat inside. The sleeves of the jumpsuit had been removed, giving her arms freedom of movement. Her face was thin with a somewhat angular chin. From the left side of the chin was a large pink scar that stretched to the bottom of her ear, accompanied by a smaller one above her temple. In her bare hand was a small crystal, barely the size of the first knuckle on her finger. It glowed in the fire's light a vibrant green that matched its owner's eyes.

"Finally," the woman said. Her voice was calm despite her living conditions. Quick steps brought her to the table, where she sat. Slender hands picked up the large pyramid. She studied it for the briefest of seconds before placing it aside. As much wisdom was in the device it would provide no such knowledge today. The scroll, however.

Her eyes pored over the scroll, studying the words written in a tongue long since dead and known only by a select few, herself included amongst them. She reached into a small chest near the table and placed her finger upon lock. A small amount of static moved from the digit to the lock and then back before the top opened. She removed the sole item within and laid it upon the table.

It was a cylinder nearly 30 centimeters long, it's grey metal cold in the air. From an opening in one end was a long coil of Mandalorian iron that had been wrapped around the hilt of the whip. At the ends of the coil the strands separated and mingled with tendrils of supple nerf leather studded with sharp iron. It was weeks of work and study; a weapon that had existed only in ancient history and legend until now. It was her final test.

Impatient fingers opened the hilt of the whip, revealing the electronic workings of the interior. Everything was in its correct place: the power cell and conductor near the base of the hilt, energizers and wiring leading from where the metal rope began. The only thing missing was what she had in her hand. Upon her "exile" onto the old Sith homeworld of Ziost, her master had hidden the gem somewhere in the frozen wasteland for her to find.

The crystal fit perfectly into the sole void in the hilt. A small hum through the Force filled her mind as the work was done. She closed the hilt up and hefted the weapon into her hand. Three kilograms. The sensors in her prosthetic arms sent the exact weight of the weapon into her mind.

She walked into the tundra again, the cold wind barely registering to her. Eyes studied the weapon before she finally let the metal and leather coils touch the ground. Her thumb hovered over the ignition plate. The price of failure was fully inside of her mind, images of a power overload and resulting explosion flashing before her eyes. Through ravaged lungs assisted by a small respirator in her chest, she took a deep breath before finally pressing the dark button.

A serpentine length of yellow energy shot out of the emitter and ran close to the length of lightsaber-resistant metal. The hopeful Sith's mouth slowly curved upwards in a grin that revealed too-perfect teeth. Her arm moved up in a fluid movement, bringing the metal, leather and energy strands with it. The elbow rotated the arm before snapping forward, sending the three ends surging forward towards the branch of a dead tree.

The branch fell to the ground, the very end of the dead wood still glowing white hot where the energy blade had struck it. On the other end, the black bark had been stripped clean to the white wood flesh beneath. Shira Brie smiled as she viewed her handiwork. Her ticket off world had finally arrived.

Shira walked back to her camp, lightwhip placed upon her belt. Lord Vader had given her so few things when he had stranded her upon this planet: the Holocron that she had now packed into a storage crate, barely enough food and water to last a month, and just the basics of survival gear.

A wave of nausea and dizziness passed over her as she placed her crate onto the miniature repulsorsled. She leaned against the sled's handles to steady herself as her stomach purged the meager breakfast that she had eaten that morning. Her master, Darth Vader was... No. No, the presence that she felt deep into her very core was no longer Vader but... It couldn't happen, not to him.

The world exploded around her, bringing Shira Brie to her knees and involuntary tears to her eyes. The Force, which had always seemed so full of shadows and dimmed light seemed positively vibrant as it washed over her. Her eyes turned to a distant spot in the sky, so many light years away that the brightness of that star had just been shed when her Order had been at its very highest. Without seeing, she knew that the Emperor was dead and Darth Vader with him.

The lid of the crate flew off with a mental push that had meant to be simple but instead propelled the metal square meters away. An ungloved hand grabbed at the Holocron and her mind ripped the sides open.

A blue figure emerged from the pyramid and stood over her. His once red skin shone a darker shade than the armor that he wore. Fleshy tendrils drooped from his upper lip like an organic moustache. "What lessons do you require today, my apprentice?" The figure looked down upon her and sensed her despair. "I didn't imprint myself upon this to train weaklings." The image began to slowly fade.

"King Adas, wait." Her voice was weak and her will as frayed as the ends of her weapon. A simple exertion of will through the Force moved between herself and the Holocron. She wasn't as weak as he said and she knew it.

The image faded more. "Are you trying to do something, my pupil?" Shira cringed at the voice's mockery of her plight. She had the power to do what she wanted a more long ago only for it to be replaced by mere echoes. Her limbs, her jaw, several of her internal organs, all of it gone and taking that future away from her forever and it was all _his_ fault. The very same presence that she had felt upon the deaths of the Emperor and her master and it was at his hands. The man that had left her floating in the void of space, slowly dying only to be replaced by this mockery of life. Skywalker. The very name repeating in her brain stoked the fire within her.

Adas' form solidified. "Good..." The spirit motioned towards the chair. "Have a seat if you wish, but ask what you must."

Shira Brie gazed into the eyes of the only teacher that she had left. "My master has died but not of my own hand. My training is incomplete and yet I am the only one of our order left."

"I will provide you no answers." Adas' voice echoed through the small cave. "Any answers you find will be your own, I can only guide you. First, tell me your name, pupil. What shall this Holocron call you?"

"Shira Brie."

"No!" She nearly flinched backwards at the long dead Sith's sudden outburst. "You have a system now that we never did. What did your master call you?"

"He said I must earn that name."

"Your master is dead and gone and you are the last. What is your name?"

Shira steeled herself and kneeled before the Holocron. "Lumiya."

"You say you are the last, Lumiya, but you must not remain the last for long."

"Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody power, the other to crave it." Those were the first words that Darth Vader had spoken to her as she awoke in his medbay aboard the _Executor_. They were part of some code that the Sith followed, a master and an apprentice. She had been the apprentice of an apprentice and now the closest thing that there was to a living master in the galaxy. "I understand, Lord Adas."

"I have limited knowledge of this 'Rule of Two' doctrine that you spout, but in times of strife, discretion is wise. Leave this world and find an apprentice of your own."

Lumiya's rage sank. She didn't know anyone that would be a suitable apprentice. There had been hundreds of dark Jedi in the employ of the Emperor, but the majority had been far too powerful to even consider submitting to her limited knowledge. All of the others were too weak. Except for... The image of another entered her mind: a young man that Vader had hoped to pit against her to test their true potential. "Flint..." she said.

The form of Adas began to fade, a smile upon his face. "Find this Flint and begin your revenge, Lumiya. The Force shall free you."

Lumiya walked up to the extinguished Holocron and placed it back into its safe place in the storage crate. Her few belongings secure, she began her hike to the shuttle.

The _Lambda_ -class shuttle sat a kilometer away from her camp site, the two wings upon its side folded up against the dorsal wing. The ramp below the slanted cockpit slowly opened as she approached, allowing a blocky humanoid droid to descend into the snow.

"You have decided that it is time to leave, Shira Brie?" The right arm of the droid ignited into a meter-long shaft of yellow energy. "You must prove yourself ready."

The nascent Sith removed the lightwhip from her belt and unfurled it before her. "My name is Lumiya." The energy whip flickered into existence.

"That is not a recognized weapon."

Lumiya's green eyes shined. "I know."

The droid moved quickly to close the distance between them, its right arm held close to its chassis in a classic guard position. Lumiya cracked her arm and sent the whip towards the droid. It rose its blade to meet the energy strand in a quick block, strands of leather falling from her weapon as they touched the opponent's blade. the screech of the metal coils sounded as she pulled the whip back towards her.

Twirling her wrist to keep the whip dancing in front of her as an impromptu shield, Lumiya shifted back a few meters to give her the distance she needed. Her opponent eagerly followed. The snap of a wrist sent the whip writhing forward, a move that the droid swiftly sidestepped.

With a scream, the cyborg twisted her body around, bringing the whip about sideways. The droid brought its blade up to block. "What?" The droid seemed surprised to see the Mandalorian iron coil itself around its blade and tightening with a simple move of Lumiya's wrist. She tugged as hard as she could, sending the blade spinning out of its hands. One more quick crack and the bisected droid fell to the ground.

The ramp closed behind Lumiya as she stepped into the shuttle's main cabin. Rows of empty seats flanked the large aisle leading to a pair of open doors in the bow of the ship. Red lighting shone through the doors, drawing her to them. The armory of the ship was mostly empty as she entered, the racks that lined the walls once filled with blaster rifles replaced with a single two meter tall closet.

A hologram came to life as she entered, the tall armor-clad visage of Darth Vader. The respirator in his chest sucked oxygen in and then forcefully exhaled it. His filtered voice spoke the last words of his that Lumiya would ever hear. "You have survived my test, pupil, and you have earned your name. Inside this chest is a gift for the occasion. You have earned that as well, but remember, you will never be a true Sith until my master is dead."

The closet on the wall opened and the glint of metal caught Lumiya's eyes. A suit of metal armor shone in the light of the armory, paired with a black undersuit laced with cortosis. A conical headdress and scarf hung next to the suit.

The hologram of Vader continued on, telling her instructions that had been rendered obsolete an hour previously, as she stripped herself of her winter survival gear and replaced it with the armor. Piece by piece the trappings of Shira Brie fell to the floor and was replaced by her new identity. She ran prosthetic fingers along the scarring of her natural born skin that had been placed over an equally prosthetic jaw, feeling each ridge and valley over what had once been an attractive face. Her glove hand grabbed the loose edge of the scarf of her headdress and secured it to the other end.

She walked to the cockpit and warmed the shuttle's engines. Closing her eyes, she reached out through the Force, pulling the information that she wanted out of the ether. Vader's retreat on Vjun. She had trained at Bast Castle before and briefly after her injuries, recent times that felt like ages ago. Flint would return there from wherever he was, called to the same location by the Force just as she was.

There, on the acid rain soaked world, she would bend her former rival to her will. The thought warmed her as she steered the shuttle off of the ancient home of her kind. On Vjun they would plan their revenge against the rebels that wronged her. Leia Organa, Crix Madine, Mon Mothma; they would join Corwin Shelvay and Erling Tredway as rebels that were dead by her means. After all of this, after destroying everything that he had helped build, she would exact her final revenge upon Luke Skywalker...


End file.
